Death Take a Holiday – Please!
Ok, I know that death is a part of life. I know the song, I remember Mufasa’s kindly explanation about the circle and all. I get it. Still, can we please take a moment and just stop with all the dying? This is getting a little absurd.
First, Farrah Fawcett. Not one of my favorite stars, I grant you, but her hair has been an inspiration to all of us. That’s quite a feat, wouldn’t you agree?
Then we lost The King of Pop. Another icon. In fact, the first big icon of my childhood to go. If you were an 80s baby, you grew up with Rainbow Brite, Care Bears, and Michael Jackson. End of story.
As we were reeling from these shocks, then comes the death of everyone’s favorite obnoxious infomercial pitch guy.
But wait, there’s more.
Today Karl Malden and Harve Presnell both died. For those of you not as instinctively familiar (or some might say obsessed) with the old movies and Broadway musicals as I am, Malden played opposite Marlin Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire and won my heart as Herbie in Gypsy. Presnell played Johnny in The Unsinkable Molly Brown, both the movie and the show.
And for kicks let’s throw in Ed MacMahon and David Carradine. Because we didn’t have enough death on the news.
I’m trying to figure this out. Is Death fulfilling some sort of quota? Is there a sicko scavenger hunt that he and the other Incarnations are participating in? Is Fate even now out searching for an icon from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and who knows what else that made it on to the list?
Maybe it’s nothing so macabre as a game that the otherworldly entities are playing. Maybe Death just thought, “Hey, I’m in the neighborhood.” I can only imagine that travel in a large black cape, complete with hood and scythe, would draw unwanted attention to our harbinger of doom. Better to knock out as much at one time as possible rather than rack up the miles by making more trips than necessary.
Given the rate at which our movie stars of yesteryear and icons of yesterday are dropping, who could possibly still be safe? Am I going to turn on the television and see that a herd of My Little Ponies was in a plane crash with the cast of Singin’ in the Rain? (Yes, I know most of that cast is already dead but I’m trying to make a point here.)
My point is that I’m fed up with this nonsense. Turmoil in Central America, drama in the Middle East, politicians getting caught doing what politicians get caught doing, Top Chef Masters is on hold for another week, and I’m out of ice cream. I can’t take any more of this stress.
Whew! I feel a little better now. Thanks.